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Bihar's fall from a state with healthy socio-economic indices to now being one of India's least developed states has been drastic. The major failures lie in governance, and in the downfall of the agricultural sector. A study of the perennial story of flooding and relief measures and the consequent failure of agriculture show how disorganised the state of affairs is. Feb 16-22, 2008

This article critically examines the use of the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund by different states and finds that a number of aspects need to be improved to ensure proper utilisation and to reduce intra-rural disparity in India. Feb 16-22, 2008

From the highway the gravestones were visible. Thirteen headstones, rough and blunt, carved with names of each dead tribal. Each stone was placed so that together they formed a semi circle looking

Small farm holders dominate the agricultural landscape in India - provides largest source of subsistence but they still remain highly susceptible to poverty and hunger because neither they get sufficient food production nor income to ensure household food security.

book>> Caterpillar and the Mahua Flower, Tremors in India's Mining Fields

About 25,000 people, mainly landless and displaced villagers, marched from Gwalior to Delhi in October, demanding land rights. They called the march

Even as we celebrate 60 years of Indian democracy, with millions of our people hungry, cynical and insecure, and living under the barrel of the gun (of the state or the extremists), we need to worry about the reach and quality of our political process. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has the potential to provide a "big push" in India's regions of distress. For NREGA to be able to realise its potential, the role of civil society organisations is critical. But this calls for a new self-critical politics of fortitude, balance and restraint.

World Development Report 2008 calls for greater investment in agriculture in developing countries.The report warns that the sector must be placed at the center of the development agenda if the goals of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 are to be realized.

On August 28, senior police officers and forest department personnel of two contiguous districts in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka held a joint meeting to combat the growing Naxal presence in forest areas.

Union minister for rural development Raghuvansh Prasad Singh defends reports of irregularities in implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in a interview with Sandip Das

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